News: 0001565781

  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

Intel IPU7 Driver Merged For Linux 6.17 For Webcams On Lunar Lake & Panther Lake Laptops

([Multimedia] 5 Hours Ago Intel IPU7)


The media subsystem updates were submitted and subsequently merged on Thursday for the ongoing [1]Linux 6.17 merge window. There are several notable media changes for Linux 6.17 but arguably most prominent is the IPU7 driver entering staging for working on web camera support for Intel Lunar Lake and next-generation Panther Lake laptops.

Following all of the struggles around upstream Linux support for the Intel [2]IPU6 imaging processing unit on Alder Lake laptops and newer that made web camera support a pain, fortunately, it's not taking as long for IPU7 to materialize in the mainline kernel. Still Lunar Lake laptops have been shipping since last year and for those models making use of the Intel IPU7 IP, the mainline driver's arrival is late but at least it's out ahead of Panther Lake.

The Intel IPU7 image processing unit driver has been under review for a while and is entering the media subsystem's "staging" area for Linux 6.17. The IPU7 can be used for capturing images from MIPI camera sensors. The IPU7 driver is expected to leave the staging area once the IPU6 and IPU7 drivers have merged their common code into a standalone module.

The Intel IPU7 driver in current form comes in at more than 17 thousand lines of code. Plus [3]new firmware binaries are needed for Intel IPU7 usage .

In addition to merging the Intel IPU7 PCI driver, the media updates for Linux 6.17 also bring some Video 4 Linux 2 (V4L2) core enhancements, the Qualcomm ris driver added HEVC and VP9 encoder/decoder support, the Rockchip video decoder driver was promoted out of the staging area, and the VSP1 media driver added support for the Renesas VSPX.

More details on these media changes for Linux 6.17 via [4]this pull .



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/search/Linux+6.17

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/search/IPU6

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-IPU7-Firmware-Upstreamed

[4] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250731172724.5de121a3@sal.lan/


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Increased Electricity Consumption Blamed on Linux

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The US Department of Energy claims Linux is partially
responsible for the increased demand for electricity during the past year.
Electricity use was up 2.5% from January to September of 1998 compared with
the same period in 1997. "While some of the increase can be attributed to
higher temperatures over the summer," one Department bureaucrat explained,
"Linux is certainly a contributor to the increased demand for power."

When asked for clarification, the bureaucrat responded, "In the past, most
PCs have been turned off when not in use. Linux users, on the other hand,
usually don't turn off their computers. They leave them on, hoping to
increase their uptime to impress their friends. And since Linux rarely
crashes the entire system, those computers stay on for weeks, months, even
years at a time. With Linux use continuing to grow, we expect demand for
electricity to increase steadily over the next several years."

In response to the news, several utility companies have announced plans to
give away free Linux CDs to paying customers who request them. One anonymous
executive said, "The more people who use Linux, the more power they consume.
The more electricity they use, the more money we make. It's a win-win
combination." Yesterday Linus Torvalds was nominated as a candidate for the
Assocation of American Utility Companies Person of the Year.